Entries from January 2006 ↓

I’m a little late on this one, but I’ve been pretty busy and really couldn’t think of much to say about the Atlantic City Indoor Race. Liquid Lou Cicconi was the class of the field, and drew the 4′th starting spot and won the race. The track is pretty tight so their was not much passing although the good cars could pass people that were slower. Overall, it was fun, but nothing to get exciting about – esp. compared to the Chili Bowl.

My racing viewing stats for 2006 after the Atlantic City Indoor Race are:

Races: 5
Tracks: 2 (0 new)
States: 2 (0 new)

A while back I made a blog reference to www. is deprecated movement at . This came up in the #lug/ip IRC channel today, so I decided to test my compliance status. ecorrado.us is Class A compliant. According to no-www.org, Class A “is the most common no-www compliance level. With class A domains, example.net and www.example.net are both valid methods of reaching this website. Many servers default to this.” Here are the results of a test on ecorrado.us:
Continue reading →

Since I ‘ve already been to four races in 2006, this may be a little late be my final race attendance stats for 2005 are as follows:

Races: 48
Tracks: 30 (17 new)
States: 15 (3 new)

This was about 10 less races then in 2004 but the same number of tracks visited. While I visited the same number of tracks in 2004 and 2005, I saw races at 4 more “new to me” tracks this past year. I also saw races in three more states then 2004 and added one more new state then I did in the previous year.

My goals for 2005 were 16 new tracks in 6 new states. I really feel short on the new states, but I did get to one more new track then I planned, so I’m happy about that. Continue reading →

I browsed on over to Save the Speedway.net earlier today and it appears that they have a commitment from an investor for one million dollars to purchase one million shares towards acquiring North Wilkesboro Speedway. From what I can gather they need about 6 million more in commitments in order to the purchase from Bruton Smith and Bob Bahre. That is still a pretty lot of money to come up with, so I’m not holding my breath that we will see racing at Wilkesboro this year, however it is good to see that they are still moving in the right direction (albeit slowly).

The last day of the Chili Bowl lived up to all expectations. The races started at about 1:00 PM with the first of two K mains. One of the best things about the Chili Bowl is watching people proceed up the alphabet. For those not familiar with the Chili Bowl, they start with the lowest letter of the alphabet they need, and if you finish in the top 3 to 5 positions (depending on the race) you get to move up one letter. Which letter main a driver starts at is determined in the preliminary nights. So, lets say Joe Racer qualified on Thursday night for the K main, if he finished in the top 4, he’d advance to the J main, and then if he again finished in the top 4 again, he’d advance into I main, and so on.

Early in the day’s races, Bryan Gard and Joe Walker both competed in six features, climbing from the K Mains all the way to the F Mains. Gard actually even won the G main and had he not tangled in the F, he may have even gone further. Chili Bowl rookie Wayne Johnson then took the spotlight – advancing all he way from the F main to the championship A main. Unfortunately for Wayne, he was the second car out of the A-main. But still, what a show these three guys put on!

The A-main saw Jay Drake and Cory Kruseman start on the front row. Northeast drivers in the A main were Steve Bulkwalter (started 11′th) and Tim McCreedie (started 10′th). Steve moved up to about 7′th place before a fuel line came off ending his day, but Timmie stole the show. For a while Jay Drake, Corey Kruseman, Sammy Swindell and Timmy McCreedie were all battling with the win. Eventually Timmie took the lead and Sammy made it to second, and it looked like Sammy was going to challenge McCreedie for the win, but Sammy had a tire go flat and he pulled into the pits. Towards the end of the race, Timmy started to build up a little lead and went on for the win. Not bad for a DIRT modified/dirt Late Model driver who was racing a midget for only the second time. As I mentioned he came from 10′th so he earned the win. Timmy basically out-drove Jay Drake and Corey Krusseman but not over driving the track. While Drake and Kruseman where running hard through the corners, Timmy just took what the track gave him. He basically crawled through the first 2/3′ds of the corners and then gassed it down the straightways. He was going “Put … Put… Put … Vroooom!” and it worked for him. Anyway, it was a great race and it was great to see a northeast driver take home the win! I can’t wait to next years Chili Bowl!

My racing viewing stats for 2006 after the last night of the Chili Bowl are:

Races: 4
Tracks: 1 (0 new)
States: 1 (0 new)

Friday was the third of three preliminary nights at the Chili Bowl. The racing all night was excellent, but the feature was assume. After the races Billy Pauch Jr., told us that was the best race he ever seen. While it was a great race and one of the best I’ve seen, I think I’ve seen races just as good before, but most of them were probably at the Chili Bowl! If you are a race fan, this is the race to see with over 260 drivers from all forms of American motorsports, including NASCAR, dirt late models, NHRA, traditional sprint cars and sprint cars with airplane parts.

The feature saw a great battle the whole race with P.J. Jones and Corey Krusseman swapping the leads many times with slide job after slide job. While that was going on Sammy Swindell, Kasey Kahne, and a Mike Goodman (a local driver from out here) were putting on a hell of a show. Kahne ended up third with Sammy 4′th and Goodman just missing the transfer spot finishing fifth.

My racing viewing stats for 2006 so far are:

Races: 3
Tracks: 1 (0 new)
States: 1 (0 new)

The last two nights I’ve spent at the first two (of three) preliminary nights of the Chili Bowl in Tulsa, OK. As usually, the racing was great. The heat races on Thursday were a little better then Wednesday, while the features went the other way with Wednesday nights feature being the better one.

Billy Pauch, Jr. almost made the A-main on Wednesday night but he and Tony Elliot got together on the last lap while they were running second and third in the B-main. Being a fan of both drivers it was upsetting to see them lose the transfer spots but I think it was just a racing incident. Steve Kinser won the A-main with fellow NST driver Danny Lasoski second, followed by Jerry Coons, Jr. and Tim McCreadie who passed Brady Bacon on the last turn of the last lap to take the fourth and final transfer spot to Saturday’s A-main.

As I mentioned the heat races on Thursday night were a little better then Wednesday. I say this because there was more passing and more drivers coming from the back to the front. The feature however didn’t offer much in the way of passing. This was mostly because of two factors. First, the fast way around the track was the high groove so no one was able to pass using the low groove. The second reason was after a crash on the initial starts, the race went all the way to the checkered with no yellows. The highlight for me of this night was Steve Buckwalter finishing 4′th in the A-main to transfer directly into Saturdays A-main.

My racing viewing stats for 2006 so far are:

Races: 1 & 2
Tracks: 1 (0 new)
States: 1 (0 new)

The National Sprint Tour announced their schedule (or what the have of it so far) at the Chili Bowl. A quick count shows about 37 dates (not counting the non sanctioned Knoxville Nationals. Nothing really earth-shattering in the schedule to report. The NST is supposed to add some more races soon, but I’m not sure how many, but my guess is they will have about 50 dates schedule when all is said and done.

I see that the World of Outlaw Sprints have released a schedule with 68 dates. I didn’t really look it over yet, but that seems to be a lot less then in past years. BTW: The National Sprint Tour has announced a few more dates as well, including races in Bloomington (Indiana), Cottage Grove (Oregon), and the Missouri State Fairgrounds in Sedalia, MO

Well, it looks like the National Sprint Tour has gotten a little farther then the National Sprint League. They actually have a few races scheduled! Seven races to be exact, four at the Thunderbowl Raceway in Tulare, CA (including the season openers on February 24th and 25th) and three dates at Susquehanna Speedway Park in Newberrytown, PA. I think I remember reading somewhere that Fred Brownfiled was looking for about 60 races, so this is just over 10% of the races the hope to have scheduled. Too bad the season opener wasn’t a weekend earlier as I’ll be on the West Coast and I may have been able to extend my trip a few days to check it out. Flying to the west coast twice in two weeks seems like a bit much for me – even if it would do wonders for my frequent flyer miles!